Thanks, Jeff! As a token of my appreciation, I’m going to tell everyone to make sure to check out your forthcoming Tales from the Farm, an also-quite-wonderful story about hockey, comics, friendship, and aliens.
This panel still makes me giggle.
“at the end of the day, these guys that rag on us won’t touch our book again and i couldn’t care less, because if they’re dissing us in one paragraph and going on about how excellent john bryne’s new comic is in the next and 95% of their reviews are based on the big two publishers, then why are they reading a romance book in the first place?”
Also, using my material as an example indicates that, well, you’re not actually paying any fucking attention. Even more also, learn to use a fucking shift key. It’s not hard. It’s right there. Try it now.
Was that so hard?
Hey, these people share my birthday!
Max Factor, Polish-born cosmetics entrepreneur (1904-1996)
Caspar Weinberger, United States Secretary of Defense (1917-2006)
Shelley Winters, American actress (1920-2006)
Brian Aldiss, English writer (1925-)
Rosalynn Carter, First Lady of the United States (1927 -)
Marge Schott, baseball team owner (1928-2004)
Roman Polanski, French-born director and actor (1933-)
Vincent Bugliosi, American attorney (1934-)
Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rican Major League Baseball player (1934-1972)
Robert Redford, American actor and director (1936-)
Martin Mull, American comedian and actor (1934-)
Elayne Boosler, American Comedian (1952-)
Patrick Swayze, American actor (1952-)
Denis Leary, American comedian and actor (1957-)
Madeleine Stowe, American actress (1958-)
Masta Killa, American rapper (1969-)
Everlast, American musician (1969-)
Edward Norton, American actor (1969-)
Christian Slater, American actor (1969-)
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, American actor (1970-)
Richard D James, Irish-born musician (1971-)
Frances Bean Cobain (1992-)
(Via, of course, Wikipedia.)
I’m actually quite excited by seeing Richard D. James on this list, as he is one of my favorite producers of beeps, bloops, and squonks. There’s also some actors I quite like (Ed Norton, Martin Mull, Robert Redford, and Denis Leary) on this list, along with those of dubious merit (Patrick “Cheers for Road House and Donnie Darko, jeers for just about everything else” Swayze and Christian “Captain Suuuulu, you’re waaanted on the bridge” Slater
Of course, there’s also the deaths that occured on August 18. The only ones that mean that much to me include Persis Khambatta and Elmer (not related to Leonard) Bernstein, but let’s not dwell on the loss of the hot baldheaded chick and that film and TV music composer, OK?
Today is also Snakes On A Plane day, and I’ve got my ticket for the noon show already printed out courtesy of Fandango. In celebration of this, much more important, event, I am re-presenting the greatest poster in the history of cinema:
Is it a job for Superman? No!
This time, the government calls on the
“least likely suspect” …the mild-mannered
reporter no one would ever dream
was really…
Clark Kent, Fighting Federal Agent!
Script: Jim Shooter
Art: Wayne Boring
Previous Complete Stories:
The Challengers of the Unknown combat “The Man Who Stole The Future!”
Lois Lane finds an admirer in“The Monster Who Loved Lois Lane!”
Jack Kirby draws “I Found The City Under The Sea!”
The Three Rocketeers meet “The Lunar Goliaths!”
The Fighting American gives the Commies a hassle in “Operation Wolf!”
Space Cabby receives “The Luxury Limousine Of Space!”
“Little” Joe Little fights crime in “The Three-Foot Sleuth!”
Due to power surges that managed to hit my scanner when I was on page 12, there will be a delay, but late tonight, you’re going to be able to read the amazing story behind this cover:
It’s guarandamnteed: if I wear a grey t-shirt, I will spill coffee on it first thing in the morning. If I am wearing, say, a coffee-colored shirt, I’m suddenly Barishnikov and able to avoid all pitfalls, pratfalls, and any other “-falls” on my way to my table at Diesel.
(The first person that says it’s the shakes from not having my Booze Reserves properly filled will be…probably right.)
Anyhow, today’s New Comic Book Day and with it comes the rather excellent new Garth Ennis / Darrick Robertson collaboration, The Boys. Much like last week’s Martian Manhunter, DC has sent copies of this new book to bloggers sans any sort of promotional material, which I rather like. You’re just to accept the comic as it comes and when the book is as beautifully over-the-top and depraved as this, that’s just fine.
The Boys has a premise that allows Ennis to really have at it: a paramilitary team of people who are very good at hurting other people is assembled to keep “superpowers” in line. The first issue is, as is standard with these things of late, all setup, allowing the reader to meet the brutal, blackly hilarious Butcher (a “big English guy” who “talks like Michael Caine” and whose dog Terror is never far from his side) and Hughie Campbell (a Scottish Simon Pegg whose girlfriend is literally taken from his arms during a fight between a “hero” named A-Train and a villain,) but Ennis gives the reader a lot to consider about the world he presents and the story he’s going to tell. It seems fairly straightforward: the G7 nations are being forced to pick up the pieces more and more as fallout from superpowered conflict affects people around the world and there’s a protagonist volunteering to help in this police action. However, there’s an entire level of shadowy exchanges, political decisions, and the like that will most likely make this a much more in-depth exploration of the “real-world” ramifications of superheroics than the first dose indicates.
Darrick Robertson is, of course, a wonder. He’s inking his own work here and the attention to detail (lines are no longer getting demolished by Jimmy Palmiotti’s heavy-handed brushwork) and the combination of humor, and pathos he manages to get across is some of the best sequential work I’ve seen him do. Ennis’s usual tropes are on display, rather proudly, so if you have a problem with people being bent over desks, obligatory masturbation scenes, and a dog that drools too much, you may want to pass. It should be noted, though, that this is the comics equivalent of Deadwood – a title that earns its mature readers tag not only for the material presented, but for the level of depth that’s unplumbed.
Prime material from two great creators, well worth picking up.
The Phil Silvers Show was one of the first “old” sitcoms I really grew to appreciate as a “grown-up.” I had no real sentimental attachment to it – I just thought it was very funny. I should find some issues of that and see if it’s any cop. The Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis comics are frequently pretty hilarious with gags that are closer to Kurtzman’s MAD than the movies they were making.
Schiff worked for years to establish an educational office within DC, to little avail. However, he somehow convinced Jack Liebowitz to spend several thousands of dollars on these comics. They’re pretty ubiquitous in DC Comics from about 1950 to 1967 amd provide a really interesting look into the mindset of the time. You can read more about Schiff over at comicbookradioshow.com and get a personal perspective on the Alvin Schwartz message boards.
Two days before that, though,
comic books arrive in your local
shop that provides such things.
Here is the cream of the crop
that is new and noteworthy.
DC Comics
JUN060242 BOYS #1 (MR) $2.99
Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson, together again with Simon Pegg apparently acting as one of the lead characters. I’m perfectly fine with this, even if it promises to be Ennis As Usual with a grotesque number of de-limbings, brutal dismemberings, and scatology.
Image Comics
APR061780 AMAZING JOY BUZZARDS VOL 2 #5 $2.99
Comics’ greatest rock band returns in a star-studded extravaganza! new mysteries are revealed as old ones are brought back and they finally get around to playing that one b-side from the charity single.
JUN061681 PHONOGRAM #1 $3.50
The fact that I really quite like McKelvie and Gillen as human beings has nothing to do with my promotion of this comic.
The fact that they’ve gone and made a fucking terrific book whose elevator pitch is “Hellblazer meets NME” is why I’m telling you to go buy Phonogram.
Also, they’ve got incriminating evidence of my behavior at San Diego.
Very. Incriminating. Evidence.
Look, here’s an ad:
Please?
Marvel Comics
JUN062030 ESSENTIAL LUKE CAGE POWER MAN VOL 2 TP $16.99
Hot damn, I love Luke Cage. I don’t even try to defend it, I just love the guy. I also love: Foxy Brown, Jackie Brown, the Brown Hornet, and a good Hot Brown.
JUN061982 MARVEL WESTERNS STRANGE WESTERNS STARRING BLACK RIDER $3.99
Speaking of the old Ghost Rider, was it just me, or is that the best part of the otherwise-dire-looking trailer for the movie?
MAY061993 NEXTWAVE AGENTS OF HATE #7 $2.99
RARRRGH! NextWave! Live it, love it!
Other Companies Comics
JUN063363 BUZZBOY SIDEKICKS RULE #1 $2.99
I love the Buzzboy comics. There’s this delicate balance between “kid-friendly” and “current DC and Marvel material” that the Buzzboy books handle quite handily and this looks to be exactly what I like in these sorts of things: fun.
Golly, this list sure is short. What, oh what can I do to make it longer?
How about I tell you that you can order something in the Current Previews and get a one-page comics story by me? It’s true! The upcoming What Were They Thinking?!: Monster Mash-Up book features a stunning 6-panel story, ruined utterly by my attempts at “humor.” Buy the book to support my bourbon habit, stay for the funny as offered up by Keith Giffen, Joe Casey, Johanna Stokes, and Dave Johnson with art from Steve Ditko among others.
There should also be a half-page bit of ha-ha from me in the Planetary Brigade Origins comic that’s out in September as well.
Wow, it’s like I’m becoming a real writer or something. Man alive.
So very much of my “adult” attitude towards things was shaped by this article. Enjoy this look into exactly what went wrong with me. This is From Details, circa 1992.
If not for hatred, I wouldn�t be doing what I do now. I became a pop star because I hated football at school. I hated that whole attitude of being one of the crowd. Becoming a pop star was my revenge. Revenge for being bad at football. For not being athletic. For being mocked.That�s the thing about negative energy, about hatred. It can be positive. It throws into relief all the things you know you like. It tells you, by elimination, what you�re about. Sometimes you can only define yourself by what you hate. Hatred becomes an inspiration; it makes you think, �What I�m doing now I totally believe in, and I don�t care what other people say.� Guided by hatred, you don�t have to follow the herd.
I hate the way people all like the same things at the same time. I�ve never understood it. When people are told about Coke � �It�s the real thing� � they should think, �No, it�s a hideous soft drink that is fantastically unhealthy to drink, full of sugar that turns into glucose that turns into fat.� They should look around America and think, �God, there are so many fat people here! Why? Because they all eat hamburgers and drink cola.� And they should hate the people who represent that. They should hate Michael Jackson for trying to foist Pepsi onto them, to make them fat victims of their own society. They should hate more. Hate Pepsi, hate Coca-Cola, hate Michael Jackson. Hate George Bush. And think about the alternatives. That�s another good thing about hatred. It makes you think about the alternatives.
Of course, these days it�s more fashionable to be positive. I hate positivity. The problem with positivity is that it�s an attitude that�s decidedly about lying back, getting screwed, and accepting it. Happily. It�s totally apolitical. It�s very, very personal and one-on-one. It�s not about changing society, it�s about caring about yourself. In fact, it�s totally about ignoring one�s economic role in society, and so it works in favor of the system. Just look at work years of personal consciousness theories have given us: those icons of the status quo, George Bush and John Major.
Positivity is fundamentally middle-class. It�s about having the time, the space and the money to sort out where your head is at. Therapy is just another side of positivity. It�s a leisure activity, a luxury for people who don�t have any real cares. It�s new age selfishness, the new way of saying that charity begins at home.
And positivity makes the world stay the same. Hatred is the force that moves society along, for better or for worse. People aren�t driven by saying, �Oh wow, I�m at peace with myself.� They�re driven by their hatred of injustice, hatred of unfairness, of how power is used.
That�s as true for pop music as it is for politics. I always feel the reason so much music comes out of Britain is because there�s so much hatred. You see or hear something and grow envious. Whereas if your positive reaction is, �Wow, that�s great,� you just sit back and think how great it is and you don�t do anything. You relax.
Luckily, I�ve never been a very relaxed person. When I look at pop music, I immediately hate things. I look at singers who say they are taking two years off to work for charity when, in fact, they�ll spend two years working on their album, and I hate them. Right now I really hate performers who make a big deal out of playing benefits and donating the proceeds from the sales of their records to charities. They could give plenty of money to charities and not tell anyone, but instead, they cash in on the fact. That�s not charity, it�s marketing. It�s about selling albums under the guise of a moral imperative. They say they�re trying to raise consciousness, as if being a celebrity gives them power and endows them with the answers to the world�s problems. But really they just want to be seen as heroes. I think it�s breathtakingly cynical and I hate it.
Another thing I hate, and another inspiration for what the Pet Shop Boys do, is the way people misunderstand pop culture. It annoys me that after more than twenty-five years, Top of the Pops, Britain�s most important pop-music TV program, changed the rules so that you have to sing live. Why? Because the people in control are the kind of conservatives who think that in the �60s, everything was much more talented than they are now. It�s all about Rolling Stone rock culture, which is essentially a fear of the new. Rolling Stone�s idea of a musician is Jerry Garcia, from the 60s. Look at all the �new� artists � Curtis Stigers, Michael Bolton, Lenny Kravitz � all of them living in the past. I think you have to live in the future. Or at least in the present.
The Pet Shop Boys have always hated most of the prevailing attitudes and tried to do the opposite. Our hatred of what other people do has always helped us redefine our actions. To hate a lot of things is tantamount to really caring about others. If you like everything, you deal with nothing. When people hear Chris and me talking, they�re sometimes shocked by how negative we are. We�re constantly critical of everything, including ourselves. But I come from a generation that liked its artists to say what was wrong with our lives. I retain the old-fashioned belief that pop music is meant to be a challenge to society as well as an affirmation of it. And so I consider it my duty to hate things.
Another Sunday night, another evening raiding You Tube and Google Video for fine content. Tonight’s music video selections are all from Ninja Tune or its related labels (Big Dada, N Tone, etc.)
The video for Roots Manuva’s “Witness The Fitness” is reason #218 that Rodney Smith is my favorite rapper.
Funki Porcini put out consistently good music that crosses genres from ambient to slow-motion jazz to fast, breaks-driven dance tracks. “Rockit Soul” falls in the last category, with some nods to sci-fi soundtracks of the 50s. Tons of archival space footage are stitched together lovingly.
“Kevin’s Pies Shop” is a major location in the charming and just-cute-enough video for “Sweetsmoke” by Mr. Scruff.
Animal on Wheels is one of those underappreciated Ninja Tune acts that always sneaks up on me. “Never In And Never Out” is just plain lovely and this low-rez version of the video does it no justice.
OK, there’s a giant Spider-Man story sample on “Giant Wall Crawling Monster Breaks” by Herbaliser. There, that ties it back into this site’s main focus. I win. (Again, neat use of public domain and government footage.)
Daedalus’s “Lights Out” is from the excellent Denies The Day’s Demise that has cover art by Winsor McKay. This is going to give me a truly obscene number of nightmares, I can tell.
Another Herbaliser video: “Something Wicked,” the almost-title track from their 2002 album Something Wicked This Way Comes.. Great vocal from Seaming To and the horns on this track make me terribly happy. Somebody who has control over these things really should license as the opening theme to some detective show.
My favorite Ninja Tune act is The Cinematic Orchestra. Sadly, the footage I’ve found of their blindingly good live performance at the Montreaux Jazz Festival is out of sync with Fontella Bass singing with her mouth closed. Happily, the promotional clip for “All That You Give,” which also features the splendid Fontella Bass, is available.
Finally, here’s Matt Black and Jonathan Moore of Coldcut talking a bit about their working method.
One day, I’ll get good enough with Photoshop
to eliminate those damned creases entirely.
Recess Pieces is Minimum Wage creator Bob Fingerman’s tribute to the George Romero movies that informed his writing and art while possibly ruining his childhood. The elevator pitch would be as follows: “middle-school Dawn Of The Dead.” It’s horribly gross and quite possibly teetering on the edge of obscenity, but Recess Pieces is also smart, funny, and beautifully drawn and colored in a style that would not be out of place among the Garbage Pail Kids if Adam Bomb and Oozy Suzy had been joined by the big-eyed, sad child posters of the 60s and 70s.
Every zombie and teen movie clich� (including racial, sexist, and religious stereotypes) is on display here and it’s to Fingerman’s credit that he makes it work, much like Shaun Of The Dead and Wet Hot American Summer took the same genres and reinvented them to comedic effect. It’s $15 for a neat little hardcover that’s surprisingly dense. Read it if you don’t mind that a teacher slipping on intestines is possibly the least offensive thing in the entire book.
So, I’m actually writing this at a branch of a large Seattle-based coffee company instead of my usual locale at Diesel. Why have I betrayed the indie coffee cause? See, Diesel decided they wanted to “remodel” and chose the company of large, burly men who carry heavy objects and make loud noises over comics nerds who type quietly with their iPods blaring gay disco directly into their brain pan. (If you’re a local wondering why I didn’t go to the on-its-last-legs Someday Cafe, it’s simple: businesses that forget to re-sign their leases and lose their space to another, more unique business deserve no business from me. And I actually don’t much like the place, but that’s beside the point.)
Anyway, some comics came out this week and the one I forgot completely is the one that’s providing me with the most joy: Star Trek: The Manga. I’m going to repeat that, with further emphasis for those who didn’t get it the first time: Star Trek: The Manga. This would be the OG, old-school, “Kirk beats up aliens then sexes the women with his sexy sexiness” Trek, drawn in the style of those Japanese comics that the kids like. Oh, it’s a glorious thing indeed, if only for the cultural cognitive dissonance. Hell, the story “Orphans” features the Enterprise facing down a group of aliens piloting giant robots. Is it any good? I have no idea; I read other comics instead last night. But it’s there. It’s so there. I’m almost afraid to read it, for fear of the concept being better than the execution.
Fantastic Four: First Family wrapped up in an oddly anticlimactic-seeming manner, despite the fact that Reed and the gang prevented an overbrained bad guy from rewriting reality. Still, I enjoyed Casey’ writing on this series, even if Weston (who I really, really do like) may have been a poor fit in the end. His art was top-notch, but I believe I need my FF to be a bit more pop-art and flashy. That’s how it is with me, I guess.
The Escapists #2 sold like hotcakes at the shop yesterday, along with all of the leftover copies of #1. I think putting a James Jean cover on the book may well have gotten more attention than Frank Miller’s work and a low price tag, which is sort of telling. I’m really loving this title, even if i’s pretty obvious that it’s going to follow the book’s model for how the relationships go. Vaughan’s knack for good dialogue (see: Runaways) and a format that doesn’t let him just go on and on and on and on with “cliffhangers” (see Y:: The Last Man for comparison) combine to form a pleasing bit of comic, even if all of the talking about comics inside is a bit fan-servicey.
I was thinking about kicking 52 to the curb after last week’s Charmed-style confrontation with the Cult of Conner or whatever they’re called, but the Doc Magnus storyline really hooked me. Now, if only I could get over how silly it seems to have Renee Montoya, streetwise ex-cop, on the streets of Kahndaq with The Question.
You know, I dunno if I’m just getting old or what, but while reading the second issue of Buckaroo Banzai, I realized that I had no clue what was going on, despite the fact there was a rundown of the previous issue’s events right there on the first page. Maybe I need to find and re-read because I don’t remember any of the events described and I have the feeling that knowing a bit more would make this issue more comprehensible. Also: I don’t know if it’s Mac Rauch or Joe Gentile, but having people talk about orgasms as icky goo flies from orifices and seizures takes place is something I don’t really need in my comic books about super-scientist rock stars. Call me a drip or whatever.
Off to work. I’ll review the new Fingerman and whatever else I’ve forgotten later.
Oh, here’s Chip Zdarsky as Warren Ellis.
From Craigslist:
I’m writing a six-series comic book about a normal guy turned into a violent vigilante hero. I’m trying to delevop or join a group of young or old aspiring writers to delevop more projects rather it’s comics or screenplays. And maybe create a imprint that bring us together and form the best stories in history.
Looking to hear from you
